The Popularity Spell (21 page)

A minute later, my phone dings with a text.

Of course!
is Madison's response.

Cool. See ya Monday!
I write.

She writes back:

I lie back on my pillow and look up. I don't know what's going to happen next, I don't know what school is going to be like from day to day, and I don't know if I'll be able to get Dad and Terri back together. But I have my friends and my family and my dog and my millipede. I have love and maybe some magic, and right now, that's all I need.

An author writes alone, but the final product is definitely a group effort. Many thanks to my agent, Jennifer Rofé, who put me through my paces, and my editor, Caroline Abbey, for seeing potential in Cleo. You've made my childhood dream come true.

Others who loved Cleo right off the bat were the young people who read early drafts and gave me great input: Sarah Geithmann, Niko Parker, Henry Dorosin, and the Darkrai Book Club: Emerson Herrera, Ethan Hsu, Brandon Hsu, Miles Straw, and Eoin Janeiro.

Adults were helpful too, of course. Thanks to LA's Writing Pad, where Cleo spoke her first words, and to my early readers Monte Smith, Lamar Damon, Steve Grieger, Kimberly Gerber-Gallagher, and my brother, Kenny Gallagher, who will
not
be getting paid $10 for his efforts.

No stranger to storytelling,
TONI GALLAGHER
earned a journalism degree from Northwestern University and has a successful career in reality TV. She began as a story editor on the early seasons of MTV's
The Real World
and was a producer on the beloved Disney Channel show
Bug Juice,
about real kids at summer camp. Currently she is executive producer of
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
on Bravo. Toni lives in Los Angeles and loves finding the magic in it. Visit her at
tonigallagherink.com
.